


and if you must die

by graceless_wolf



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: M/M, discussion of dangerous/lethal situations, guns/blood/violence talk etc u feel? but u could easily skip past it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceless_wolf/pseuds/graceless_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sure, the team knows about him and Reid. Not officially, but in the way where they aren’t hiding it, at least. Glances that last a moment too long; Reid pressing his hand almost subconciously against the top of Morgan’s spine where he knows, easy as breathing, that Derek will relax against him; Morgan always sitting beside Reid, arm across the back of Spencer’s seat, playing idly with the back of his hair. They know.</p>
<p>Which is exactly why Derek doesn’t know why they keep pressing this. This isn’t happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and if you must die

Morgan tenses, visibly; shoulders drawing up, eyebrows drawn. “You tellin’ me Reid’s going in there alone?  _That’s_  our great plan?”

  
"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?" Hotchner looks bored, honestly, but he always looks bored. Morgan has known him for long enough, however, that he can see the twitch in his jaw. 

  
"Hell yeah, I have a problem with that."

  
Reid is watching Morgan intently, and Derek can almost see the cogs turning in his brain. Derek just steels his nerve and ignores the feeling that always gathers in his chest when Spencer looks at him like that. 

  
Rossi sighs, impatient. “We’ve done this same thing before, Agent Morgan, with Prentiss. You’ve suggested it before. What’s so different this time?”

  
"What’s  _different_  is—” he pauses, struggling to figure it out in his brain. Sure, the team knows about him and Reid. Not officially, but in the way where they aren’t hiding it, at least. Glances that last a moment too long; Reid pressing his hand almost subconciously against the top of Morgan’s spine where he knows, easy as breathing, that Derek will relax against him; Morgan always sitting beside Reid, arm across the back of Spencer’s seat, playing idly with the back of his hair. They know.

 

Which is exactly why Derek doesn’t know why they keep pressing this. This isn’t happening.

 

”Reid is the UNSUB’s type. Long hair, thin, androgynous,—"

 

"I don’t wanna hear it, Emily." 

 

"Derek—"

 

“ _No_.” He winces at his own voice. He always does his best not to snap at his colleagues. It never gets them anywhere. 

  
Reid clears his throat and automatically holds all attention in the room. Including Derek’s, even if he doesn’t make eye contact.

 

"Can I, uh— can I speak to Der— Agent Morgan? Alone?"

 

The room at large murmurs scattered assent and starts to clear out.

 

Morgan turns away, refusing to face Reid when he can still feel his fists shaking. He doesn’t want to snap at one of the only people he truly trusts, and he knows trusts him.

 

He doesn’t move when he hears Reid stand, and he doesn’t move when Reid presses against his back. His hands do cover Reid’s when they wrap around Morgan’s waist, and he can feel tension seeping out slightly with the small kiss Spencer places like an apology between his shoulder blades.

 

"Derek—"

 

"It’s not what you think."

 

He can feel Spencer’s smile curving against his shirt, can feel Spencer’s hands tightening against him.

 

"What do I think it is, Derek?" Reid asks.

 

Morgan sighs softly, closing his eyes. “You think I don’t trust you. You think I think you can’t do this.”

 

Spencer says, “Do you? Do you think that?”

 

As quickly as he can, Morgan spins around, hands catching on Reid’s waist and tugging him close. He presses his forehead to Reid’s, brushes their noses together. He can feel Spencer’s hands trailing up his arms and settling on either side of his neck.

 

"No," he says, reverent and quiet, "No. Hell  _no_ , that’s not what I think. God, Spenc, of course I don’t think that.” He presses a kiss to Spencer’s lips quickly; keeps going.

 

"You’re smart and capable and  _christ_ , I’ve seen you stare down the barrel of a loaded machine gun and talk down a shooter without even batting an eye.” He remembers it so well it takes over again: the thought, every moment, of being helpless and hopeless and— and  _Spencer_  being the victim on the ground, pale skin made even paler and stained red and—

 

"That’s not why I don’t want you to do this because that’s not what I think. And it never will be. I don’t want you to do this because—"

 

"—because it’s reckless and I could get hurt and you," Reid’s hands flutter lightly up to Derek’s cheeks, and Derek barely registers that he’s smiling. "You don’t want me to die."

 

Morgan shakes his head fondly, “Shut the hell up, pretty boy.”

 

Reid’s smile widens, fingers tracing the shell of his ear. “No, no, I don’t think I will. You’re worried about me. You  _care_  about me. You think that this is too dangerous because you don’t want me to be injured because you  _lo_ —”

 

Derek kisses him. Spencer makes a happy little noise and shifts even closer within Derek’s arms.

 

"I love you," says Derek, a little warm and a lot less angry then he was when this conversation started.

 

"I know you do," Reid says. His eyes are bright and Derek has to kiss him again. When he pulls back, Spencer is flushed and grinning at him. "I love you, too. And you’re worried, rightly so. But I’ve been trained for this, and so have you. You trust me to do my job. Let me."

 

Derek nods and lets Reid’s fingers trace patterns against his neck and scalp, soothing and constant and grounding. Spencer bumps their noses together again, before pressing a tiny kiss to the end of Morgan’s nose. Morgan smiles, huffs a laugh, tightens his grip.

 

“I can’t lose you, Reid. I  _won’t_.”

 

“No,” says Reid, “you’re right. You won’t. Do you think I don’t feel the same way? I can’t— I can’t lose you either, Derek. You— you’re all I have, really. I mean, here, at least. Here, right now, you’re it.”

 

“Do not let your mother hear you say that.” Derek laughs, “She’d have my head on a silver platter.”

 

“Nah,” Reid smiles, “she’d probably congratulate you.”

 

There’s a pause where they’re just standing there staring at each other, no space between their tangle of limbs and whispered words, and Derek knows in his bones that Reid is just waiting for the last of the anger to melt out of his system before he even thinks about moving away.

 

Spencer presses a few more kisses to the corner of Derek’s mouth, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Morgan pulls away from the attention smiling softly, and wraps his arms tighter around Spencer, and higher up, burying his face in Reid’s neck. Reid’s arms circle his shoulders, hands running lightly along Derek’s shoulder blades.

 

“Okay,” says Derek, voice muffled against the collar of Spencer’s shirt. “Alright, alright. I’m— I’m good.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

Derek untangles himself, but doesn’t go far, just a step away to get some air.

 

“If I don’t stop us now, I won’t.”

 

He hears Spencer’s gasp and sees his eyes darken, but he just takes another step away, so the only thing keeping them in contact is their joined hands, loose and easy and—

 

Spencer tugs sharply, pulling Morgan back to him and kissing him hard. Derek can feel his heart beat quicken, and Spencer bites gently on his bottom lip. He hears a strangled noise (did he make that? Huh.) and Spencer pulls back with a smirk.

 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

 

Derek grins back at him, pushes back until Reid is flush against the edge of the table and leans down to bite lightly at his neck. He presses heated kisses to the flushed skin there, trailing up Spencer’s jaw until he gets to his ear.

 

“I don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu w prompts or just come say hi @ableismkills


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